The Cross Courts Junior Boys Open was held at Cross Courts Squash & Fitness Center in Natick over the weekend of December 4^th-6^th 2009. 110 players from as far away as Atlanta, St Louis and Philadelphia showed up for a fun and competitive weekend of squash.

In the Boys U19 event, Cross Courts member and top seed, Derek Chilvers, justified his seeding by not dropping a game en route to the final where he fought off the spirited challenge of Daniel Saleem (Atlanta) 11/7, 11/2, 11/4. Saleem may have been a little leg heavy after outlasting #2 seed Scott DeSantis (Cross Courts) in their semi-final 5-game thriller.

Arhum Saleem (Atlanta) decided to play up an age bracket and compete in the U17 event. This was a justified decision as he cruised through the early rounds and faced Jack Blasberg  (Boston) in the final. With a deadly short game, he proved too accurate for Blasberg on the day and took the title 11/6, 11/1, 11/3.

The U15 draw was huge with 43 players vying for the trophy.  Charlie Blasberg (Boston) caused a minor upset by playing error free, solid squash to beat the top seeded Sean Kenny (Philadelphia) 11/7, 13/11, 11/6 in the final.

Seedings proved accurate in the U13 division as the top four seeds, all from Boston, faced off in the semi -finals.  Timmy Brownell proved his class and showed some tremendous racket skills to defeat Justin Curtis in the final 11/6, 11/6, 11/8.

In his last U11 event, local Cross Courts player and #2 seed Jack Bell went out a winner by knocking off top-seeded Patrick McElroy (Boston) with a good display of fundamentals by both boys. Jack was just a little sharper on the day and took the match 11/9, 11/3, 11/3.

On behalf of Cross Courts I would like to thank Tom Poor and the Mass Squash Junior Committee for their organization and promotion of the event. A special thank you must go to Rich and Terri Schafer for having spent many hours setting up the draws and scheduling courts for the weekend.

We look forward to hosting everyone again for the Cross Courts Open 2010 edition!

Dan Sharplin

Director of Squash

Cross Courts Squash & Fitness Center